


Rules

by JadeRiverDay



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Human, Bittersweet Ending, Cardverse, Gen, I don't know what I'm doing, Lonely God trope, Mild Language, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated T for language, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Why Did I Write This?, most tagged characters won't show up for a while tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-10-21 10:44:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17641265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeRiverDay/pseuds/JadeRiverDay
Summary: "There is always more than what meets the eye and this game is more than just a game." - Law of CardverseMatthew Williams, at least, that's what he thinks his name is, is a Rule Card, with the responsibility to write the rules of the Cardverse along with his partner, Berwald Oxenstierna. After they finish writing the rules, they must witness how the game unfolds- until the Kings nearly break their rules and someone calls them.Matthew answers the summons, but their creation is more than they could have ever predicted.Meanwhile, tensions are building between two areas off of the map: Nihon, and the large empire of Hua Guo. Two Queens are drawn into this, forcing them to reconsider searching for their King. The other Kingdoms soon meet their counterparts from another continent, and the world suddenly has grown much larger than what anyone could have ever predicted.Why are the Kings missing? Why has this war started now? Who is behind the Cardverse, engineering this whole scheme? Why was a Rule Card summoned? What if they are all just cards played to stray from the answer?What will prevail: chaos or truth?[I'm aiming for monthly updates, but forgive me if I don't update]





	1. Card Rules

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This part explains what the Rules are. If you don't know what Cardverse is, it's just Hetalia, but some characters are associated with different cards, such as King, Queen, etc. There aren't any Aces in this particular story, yet.

  1. **Definition of cards** : All cards represent a person or group of persons 
  2. The King, Queen, Jack, and Joker cards are always in play
  3. **Law of free will** : Every card is free to do whatever they wish, but they can never become self-aware of the fact that they are cards 
  4. **Law of Affinity** : Kings are equal to other Kings in political and magical power, as Queens and Jacks are equal to other Queens and Jacks respectively in the same way
    1. Every person represented by a card of royalty has certain abilities unique only to them
    2. Those abilities may not violate rule 4
    3. Law of power of royalty: Jacks can always be beaten by Queens and Kings, but Queens can only be beaten by Kings 
  5. **Law of Jokers' power** : Jokers are weaker than royalty in terms of physical power, but are equal to Queens in terms of magical power 
  6. **Law of Cardverse** : There is always more than what meets the eye and this game is more than a game. There are no winners or losers.
  7. **Absolute Law of Rule Cards I** : All other rules and laws besides these are products of the cards themselves. These rules cannot be broken by any card
  8. **Absolute Law of Rule Cards II** : Rule Cards may be summoned if and only if there is a issue that absolutely cannot be resolved by any other means 



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the Rules are comprehensive enough! It's not necessary to understand them all yet; I'll explain them throughout the story


	2. Rule

Matthew Williams, or that was what he thought his name was, set his quill down after writing a final sentence on a small card. It had been far too long since he had really been called by a name, so at this point, he was only guessing that ‘Matthew Williams’ was his name. In his position, a name wasn’t very useful, but unlike his counterpart, he clung to whatever humanity was given to him or left in him. Normally, if he was to be called, he would be referred to as ‘Rule’, nothing more and nothing less.

He placed the card on top of a stack at the edge of a table. There lay more cards, as if someone was playing a game of War or Solitaire, but every Suit was divided from one another, and there was no one else except Matthew and his counterpart. His counterpart was the other ‘Rule’; Matthew figured he probably had a name, but they had never used names with each other, not even at the beginning of this game.

 _Ah, but his name is Berwald_ , the random thought occurred in Matthew’s mind. He glanced up at the man sitting directly opposite him. _That is_ his _name_.

Matthew picked another blank card from a different stack and began to write. As the words flowed from the pen to the paper, and he never made mistakes, the cards on the table and the table itself warped and shifted to match the words on the card. Berwald was doing the same across from him. The size of the table and the number of cards on the table never changed, but the layout of the cards and the colors and textures of the table did. This continued until the last blank card was printed with ink from either man. Then, this game would begin.

Matthew sighed in relief when he finally finished marking his stack of blank cards. He wasn’t sure what he was sighing for: the completion of his task, or just having some sort of emotion? Berwald, on the other hand, showed little emotion on his face, but Matthew vaguely remembered that the Swede wasn’t the best at expressing emotion. How he knew this and why remained a mystery to him, just like the table in front of him. Perhaps it was just magic, just like everything Matthew and Berwald knew.

Once the rules were set, the game would begin, and neither Rule Card would be able to interfere, unless something drastic happened. That means both Rule Cards could rest after the rules were set. Matthew decided that it was now a good time to take a nap. After spending perhaps an eternity setting the limitations and boundaries of the cards laying on the table before him, he really needed a break. He set his arms on the edge of the table like a makeshift pillow and fell asleep immediately.

Matthew’s partner, Berwald Oxenstierna and the first of the Rule Cards, resolved to watch how the game would play out. Despite he and Matthew having made the rules of the game, they could not predict how the game would be played and what the result would be in the end. However, since they made the rules, they were not the players. The cards themselves would play the game out themselves. There would be no winner, nor a loser, because the rules were set that the cards could only work together and coexist. That was not written explicitly in the rules by Berwald and Matthew, but it was a hidden rule. Those cards represented people, after all.

It surprised Berwald slightly when all of the King cards suddenly flew to the far corners of the game table, almost flying off the edge and into the territory of rule breaking. In the world depicted by the cards, three hundred years had passed after the game had started. Time passed differently in the Cardverse than in Berwald and Matthew’s world, but the time flow could be changed to suit either man’s preference. Since Matthew was asleep, Berwald was free to change the time flow of their little game. After slowing the game down to the point where time in the Cardverse flowed as slowly as it did in their world, Berwald reached over the table, taking care not to disturb any card, and gently shook Matthew awake.

“Est-ce-que qu’est?” he asked. “I mean, what is it?”

Berwald pointed to the cards at the four corners of the table. “All of the King cards? How’d they get here?” He frowned as he mentally ran through the rules he wrote earlier. “That’s not against the rules, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

Berwald nodded. It came close to breaking the rules, but the absoluteness of the rules the two of them had written was undisputable.

“Well,” Matthew stated, noting the strange placements of the King cards. “Let’s see how this’ll play out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Useless information: Sweden was chosen as the first Rule Card because Sweden is the oldest politically neutral country. Canada was chosen as the second Rule Card because I like him.  
> And as for Berwald's relationship with Tino, I can't say anything yet. This fic has no ships planned, and I intend on keeping it that way.


	3. Yao Wang, Jack of Spades

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Indeed, the Jack of Spades is Chinese, but why is that so?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a history dump at the beginning, so sorry about that  
> I didn't feel like rewriting the whole chapter  
> but the history is a little important

Long ago, one of the earliest and greatest Kings of Spades, King Amelia, traveled by ship to a country across the ocean from the continent her own Kingdom was. By doing so, the young King started the grand Age of Exploration for the four Suited Kingdoms: the Kingdom of Spades, the Kingdom of Diamonds, the Kingdom of Clubs, and the Kingdom of Hearts. However, since the Kingdom of Spades was the first country to travel to the unknown lands, they were the ones who had the most options for land to conquer. Within a decade, the Kingdom of Spades had managed to conquer several barbarian tribes in the land across the sea. King Amelia and her Queen, Queen Alice, named the land Chaua, and soon word of the new empire created by the Kingdom of Spades got out to the other neighboring tribes at risk of being conquered.

To the King’s surprise, one of those tribes had chosen to give up one of their people instead of being conquered. That tribe believed that culture was the most important and best definition of a person, and to assimilate into another culture was the greatest punishment one could take. The kind King accepted their sacrifice and allowed them independence. The person the tribe gave up was a man the same age as the King herself who bore a strange mark on the inside of his right wrist and had previously been branded as an outcast because of it. However, as soon as the man had shown his mark, the King embraced him. She recognized the mark as the symbol of Spade, and only royalty had that particular variant of the mark. That man was to be the Jack of Spades. His name was Wang Guang Di. With great joy, King Amelia and Queen Alice brought the new Jack of Spades back to their home kingdom.

Several years later, a small messenger ship docked at the capital port of the Kingdom of Spades. A messenger, identifying as one of the members of the tribe, which was now a country, disembarked from the ship and brought a letter to the King and Queen. In that letter, the emperor of the new country, Hua Guo, proposed an alliance with the Kingdom of Spades by sending a princess or a noblewoman to marry the Jack of Spades. If the Jack of Spades had truly lost himself by assimilating into the culture of the Kingdom of Spades, the emperor wrote, the least he could ask is that the bloodline of the Hua remain pure for all of the Jack’s descendants. After much debating, Queen Alice finally persuaded King Amelia to accept the alliance. The response was written under both of their names.

Since then, the Kingdom of Spades has had a strong alliance with Hua Guo, and the Jack of Spades continued to be a pure Hua person. Even after losing their colonies in the unknown lands and the mysterious disappearance of the King one hundred thirty years ago, the Queen maintained the alliance with the empire, so the emperor continued sending a noblewoman to be the Jack of Spades’ wife. Every Jack of Spades was a direct descendant of the first Jack of Spades, Wang Guang Di.

Not long after the birth of the future Queen, Arthur Kirkland, the Jack of Spades’ wife gave birth to the Jack who would serve the future Queen Arthur. Unlike the generations before him, the Jack of Spades wanted a son who would emulate the first Jack’s glory.

By combining the second and third characters of Wang Guang Di, the future Jack of Spades was named Wang Yao.

* * *

_Glory, my foot_ , Yao thought to himself as he stared at the stack of papers he was supposed to be delivering to the Queen of Spades after sorting out the papers that he, the Jack of Spades, was supposed to be signing. It didn't help that he also had a banquet to arrange for all of the Suited Kingdoms: the Continental Annual. He was supposed to work with the Queen of Spades for the Annual, but he didn’t feel like searching for the elusive Queen. Instead, he slouched in his chair, not touching the papers, and started thinking of some self-deprecating thoughts. _Wang Guang Di wasn’t westernized like me, and he still had a King to divide the work with!_ _He wasn’t lazy like me, he wasn’t a procrastinator like me . . . he’s almost nothing like me!_

“ _Ugh,_ ” Yao muttered to himself, drawing the syllable out for much longer than was probably necessary. “‘We hope you’ll be as glorious as the first Jack of Spades’, they said,” he mimicked, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “‘You’ll be famous in history,’ they said.” He grabbed the top few sheets and scanned the documents for his name and Arthur’s before starting two piles of papers: one for him and one for Arthur. “It really makes me want to-!” he hissed in his ancestor’s native tongue, just before the Queen of Spades opened the door to his office and let himself in.

“Were you just about to swear in your native language again?” Arthur asked him, raising an eyebrow.

 _So he finally shows up_ , the Jack thought. “I swear on my language, I wasn’t,” Yao quickly replied. Then, he tried reading Arthur’s mind to see if he was angry at the Jack. Fortunately, the Queen’s only thought was _That was not what I was going to say._

“Good.” There were other words that Arthur left unsaid, but the Queen decided against continuing. _But the real question is_ , Yao read in Arthur’s mind, _did he finish the sorting, and has he come up with any plans for the Annual?_

“And I didn’t finish the sorting,” Yao added before Arthur could ask, almost surprising his superior. Arthur was one of the few people who knew of Yao’s mind reading ability, just like how Yao knew of Arthur’s strange ability to see the paranormal and supernatural. “That’s a work in progress. Don’t worry; I know the timeline for all of these, so I’ll make sure they’re done on time.”

“Have you started arrangements for the ball?”

“No. I was planning on working with you to plan the Annual. I can’t do everything by myself, right?” Yao may have been a hard worker, but he had his limits. Plus, Yao didn’t really want to arrange an entire international banquet by himself, especially when said event was the easiest chance to lose his country’s face. He absolutely could not destroy his country’s reputation at a banquet, so he would need Arthur’s help to cater the banquet towards the tastes of most of the guests. Yao didn’t think that he himself would have a problem with pleasing the Queen of Hearts.

After Yao left Arthur with nothing more to say, the Queen nodded and promptly left.

Yao sighed and resumed sorting the papers. He would have to design the invitations for the banquet later this month.  _So much for emulating his glory._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We meet China and England! Yes, China can read minds, and this will actually prove useful later on. England's ability is pretty useless :p  
> or is it?


	4. Kiku Honda, Queen of Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Queen of Hearts hails from a region known as Nihon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting the Queen of Hearts chapter on Valentine's Day~

The Queen of Hearts was always chosen by the mark of Queen appearing on the inside of the future Queen’s right wrist. The mark would appear on the Queen only when either the King of Hearts or the Jack of Hearts cast the spell that determined who would be royalty: the twelve step Seeker of Hearts’ Circle. This was done because the Kingdom of Hearts didn’t believe in having a royal bloodline inheriting the crown; instead, they believed in the integrity of an incorruptible spell to choose their royalty.

The last King of Hearts was so powerful, his Seeker’s Circle predicted who would be Queen and Jack for three generations after his death. To his surprise, he found that his own grandson would become the Jack of Hearts after a generation, but he also found that there were no Kings in his Seeker’s Circle. He realized that he would leave his Kingdom without a King, but he could not find the cause of the lack of Kings, nor could he find a solution. Even on his deathbed, the King was haunted by the fact that he would leave a Kingdom King-less, and there was no precedent for this in the Kingdom of Hearts.

The last King of Hearts was Romulus Vargas, the grandfather of the current Jack of Hearts, Feliciano Vargas.

* * *

Kiku Honda came from the well-respected Honda family, who had fled to the Kingdom of Hearts just before the Kingdom of Spades had conquered their homeland, Nihon. The Honda family was as old, if not older, than even the Kingdom of Spades, the oldest Kingdom among the Four Kingdoms, so it was no surprise that they were the first aristocratic family with origins from off of the continent. Even then, his parents were shocked to find that their son was born with the mark of Queen. They had immediately rushed to the palace to report the good news to the Queen and Jack of the time.

The Queen and Jack met this news with the same happiness as the Hondas. They agreed to raise Kiku and train him to be Queen once he was old enough to be independent from his family. At age thirteen, Kiku left the Hondas to live in the palace as the Princess of Hearts. He met the Jack-Prince of Hearts not long after he moved into the palace, and somehow, he became friends with the lighthearted boy.

Feliciano Vargas was quite friendly, if a bit childish at times. Kiku appreciated having such a carefree Jack around, even after he was crowned Queen, but Kiku’s only problem with his Jack was exactly that: his carefreeness. The Jack rarely did work, and instead, spent much of his time outside the palace and in the city, especially with the fine ladies of the capital city. That, the Queen supposed, might be beneficial to the public image of the royalty of the Hearts, but it did nothing to assist Kiku in ruling the kingdom. Since the time of the death of Feliciano’s grandfather, there had not been a King of Hearts, so all of the duties normally done by the King were divided between the Queen and the Jack. However, with Feliciano doing Rules-know-what with women or probably sitting in the kitchen eating pasta yet again, most of the duties of the monarch were given to poor Kiku instead.

Kiku took his duties as Queen seriously, and as soon as he noticed the Jack’s tendency to to slack off, he took those duties seriously too. This meant that he was constantly at work, so he kept a meticulously planned out timetable. His work ethic was legendary, and the Kingdom had never seen such productivity in a king, but no matter how hard working, no single person could do the same work as three people. Even Kiku wished that he had a King to work alongside, who could persuade even Feliciano to do the duties he had as Jack.

 _What I wouldn’t give for a King,_  Kiku mused as he worked on sorting the mail, sorting the international envelopes from the the domestic letters. Despite Feliciano’s habit of vanishing during the day, Kiku knew that he could make the Italian deal with the domestic issues at night. Feliciano could finish the domestic issues much faster than Kiku, because unlike Kiku, he wanted to get things done, instead of overthinking it. Laziness, after all, was just another term for efficiency. Kiku would deal with the more impactful and long-term international issues. There were fewer envelopes from abroad, but Kiku would spend a lot of time just overthinking the consequences that could be connected to a single international decision.

He had two letters left. The first was from the Kingdom of Spades, which was an invitation to the annual Four Kingdoms Banquet. This year, it was to be held in the Kingdom of Spades. Kiku added ‘respond to invite’ on his planner. The second was labeled with an address he had never seen before.

 _Request to the Queen of Hearts from the Imperial Diet of Nihon, Higashi-Miyako_ was written in a language Kiku learned how to read as a child. It took him by surprise when he found that the entire letter was written in Nihongo, the language he thought he would never use. However, the region of Nihon was under the jurisdiction of the Hua Guo empire. Nihon was not an autonomous region either, so they could not have had an imperial diet.

Perhaps it was a good thing that Kiku took care of the international matters. Unlike Feliciano, he would put great thought into it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Higashi Miyako are the kunyomi readings of the two characters that make up the name Tokyo.  
> and yes, Kiku is fluent in Japanese, despite his family having been in the Kingdom of Hearts for so long.  
> I'm terrible at foreshadowing


	5. Vash Zwingli, Jack of Hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Four years turned a mere boy into a true king.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize that these first chapters are mostly worldbuilding dumps, mainly because when I first started writing these, I didn't have a plot to go by, so I just went with worldbuilding.  
> Also, this chapter goes to show what I can do with one of my favorite characters, versus someone that I have neutral ~~haha~~ feelings on ~~sorry Roderich, your chapter is coming soon~~  
>  Most of this doesn't seem really realistic rip, but I'll do what I can to explain his choices in the future

Vash Zwingli was only four years older than his step-sister and Queen, Erika Vogel, but he had a lifetime’s worth of experience separating his burdened, two-decade-old existence from her almost carefree, young girl’s heart. He was chosen by Fate to be the Jack of Diamonds, while she too was chosen by Fate to be the Queen of Diamonds. It was the unfortunate incident of the previous Queen and Jack that thrust the entire Kingdom onto Vash’s shoulders, which strengthened him and also forced him to bear a weight that no one his age should ever have to.

Fate was the spell that determined who was to be the King, Queen, and Jack of the Kingdom of Diamonds. Similar to the Seeker’s Circle of the Kingdom of Hearts, it was the only way to determine who would be royalty, but unlike the Seeker’s Circle, it need not to be cast by a person. It was a self casting spell, and just like the Seeker’s Circle, it would mark the future royal on the inside of their right wrist when it came time for them to take their throne.

Erika was crowned the Queen of Diamonds only two years ago, when she came of age, but Vash was the Jack for longer. He was crowned when he was only sixteen, barely old enough to count as legal majority, and he took the title of Jack when the previous Queen of Diamonds was ailing from an illness. The previous Jack of Diamonds had passed away from a similar illness, one that even the court doctors could not cure, leaving the young Vash to rule virtually by himself. When the Queen passed away as well, Erika was only twelve, too young to become the Queen of Diamonds, which left Vash as the sole ruler of the Kingdom of Diamonds for four more years.

For the first time in the history of the Four Suited Kingdoms, a royal was truly alone in ruling their Kingdom. The people of the Kingdom of Diamonds did consider asking Vash to choose a regent while he would train to be the ruler he needed to be, but they decided against it, choosing to trust the wisdom and judgement of Fate. Fate never chose regents, only rulers.

Vash himself didn’t dislike being the sole ruler of the Kingdom of Diamonds; it meant that he didn’t have to face any opposition from other royals, but he didn’t like being alone either. No matter his personal feelings, Vash worked hard on a level that matched, and some claim exceeded, the energy and effort the Queen of Hearts put into running his Kingdom in those years that he ruled alone. His efforts weren’t even for the sake of his own self. No, Vash was a selfless and capable ruler. One of the first things he did as the Jack of Diamonds was to raise his own power to match that of a Queen, or to decrease the power of the Queen to match that of his own. He used the Kingdom of Clubs as a model to reform his Kingdom, giving his people the right to vote, but keeping his own absolute power. Vash was brilliant when it came to finances; he knew and understood that the wealth of the Kingdom of Diamonds was second only to the Kingdom of Spades, so he used that to his advantage and filled the royal treasury for the sake of improving his country. He knew that giving his citizens the right to vote would eventually severely limit his power, and that of his step-sister, but Vash knew that he could not run the Kingdom by himself. The Queen of Hearts showed that to him. Instead, he used the people’s power to reform his country, to make it suitable for his sister and himself to rule, and to improve the lives of his people.

Because of this, Vash was seen as an incredibly adept ruler. He took advantage of the peace between the Four Suited Kingdoms and used newly created taxes to improve the Kingdom. It was almost like he was a benevolent ruler in a past life; all of his actions were calculated to benefit his people, not himself. None of his citizens could even imagine Vash as a selfish person; it seemed like he was incapable of not helping his kingdom, even at his own expense.

Vash didn’t just improve the Kingdom; he learned about and improved his own self at the same time. Before he became the Jack of Hearts, Vash was a hunter known for his absolutely perfect aim; none of his targets, no matter who or what, would emerge from his scope unharmed. It didn’t even matter what gun he used, and the Kingdom of Diamonds was known for its wide variety of guns. After he inherited his title, Vash developed an ability, as all royals had done before him. At first, he brushed it off as hallucinations from the stress he had as the sole ruler of his Kingdom, but as his “hallucinations” persisted, Vash realized it had to be his ability. When he saw a person, their figure would be overlayed with colors. This was the best way Vash could explain it. The colors would correspond to different personality traits, and Vash would just _know_ a person’s character. He could just sense it; the colors never really stayed fixed on the same trait, it was just a different way of seeing someone. Vash didn’t even know if those were colors; so unique was his ability, he could not find words to describe its workings, even in the four languages he spoke. Eventually, he trained himself to control his ability, and he dubbed his ability his “eye” because he trained himself to see normally in one eye while he used his ability in his other. His training even led him to being able to actively search for a person with a certain character or certain traits, while he would literally turn a blind eye on everyone else. Vash never used his ability on himself in the mirror, so it wasn’t until Queen Erika was crowned that he learned from her observations that his eye would fade to a grayish-silver when his ability was in effect.

But that wasn’t the only ability Vash had. He taught himself magic, especially the space manipulation type. It would not do for a ruler to not walk among his people, no matter how far his people were from the capital, Vash believed. Plus, as the sole ruler of his Kingdom, he had to manage the defenses of his Kingdom, and having the ability to transport himself to the very borders of his country was something Vash believed he needed, no matter how. Space manipulation involved shrinking distances and bending space, two different techniques Vash mastered for those two purposes. He also learned enhancement magic to boost his productivity; endurance, sleep deprivation, and insomnia spells he used all too often. To Vash, the ends he had for his Kingdom justified the means he used on himself.

His was only sixteen when he made this promise to himself. After the Queen died, he lived by it for the four years between her death and Erika’s coronation. He didn’t care about his well-being; he only cared that his Kingdom would continue to run smoothly. He was both transparent with his subjects and closed his lonely existence off from them; he welcomed them with open arms, but somehow kept his true self away from his people. Four years forced him to mature from a mere teenage hunter to a true king.

It was almost like he had done this before, that he had ruled before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> maybe this isn't so much of a- I'm going to stop there because spoilers


End file.
